just for fun, i’ll post some of the answers from other forums and websites to this question:
Who said anything about a conspiracy?
- Are we talking about the same thing here? The original question was about small businesses, which usually have small (and older) doors.
You talk about doors with a bank of elevators opposite, which are not found in small businesses, but rather grand entrance halls like in hotels. Only those usually use revolving doors for that.
Modern or big businesses like Walmart use automatic sliding doors, yet they seem to cope with the wind despite the much bigger opening these big doors create. Strange, isn’t it?
- Googling what people on the internet say doesn’t make it right. It also doesn’t mean that the solution used currently is in any way or shape the best or only solution to this “wind-stack” problem you mention.
We’ve already one doper explain that it can be a case of the manager forgetting to unlock the second door.
Both “security” and “wind stack” doesn’t sound very convincing to me. If you believe it, fine.
Which depends on more factors than just the doors themselves of course: how did the architect orient the building? How much wind is created at this spot? What other openings let wind inside? A lot of buildings are very badly designed by architects and thus create a lot more draft then necessary.
Trying to rectify this with the doors is a patch-up measure compared to designing the building properly the first time.
And again, this usually occurs in high-rise buildings, near corners or on buildings with big open fronts.
Not the small store with two narrow doors set side-by-side, which the OP was asking about.
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I don’t see many of these kind of doors in my area, because we have different building and fire codes.
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We already have the answers from other dopers who asked and got the nonsensical answer “Security”.
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Why do you believe that a manager will admit to being lazy (too much bother) or ignorant (we’ve always done it this way) instead of repeating some nonsense he was first told?
And?
This isn’t anything new, we’ve already had these explanations:
- If fire code demands a wide enough exit, than that door must be fitted with a way to open it in an emergency quickly.
A latch on the top or bottom that can be opened only with a key from the manager does not fit this definition. Either they need a lever that anybody can operate (usually coupled with an alarm system and a sign) or they need to keep it unlocked all times.
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“Deliveries” are not the only thing that requires “wide” doors. I already listed (and you ignored) many customers who require doors a bit wider than those old-fashioned squeeze-through half-doors.
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Offices are not relevant to the question of small business because they usually have far less traffic than a grocery store and thus can get by with only one door.
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Tall buildings usually use revolving doors (as I already said) or several sets of doors to form airlocks.
And as I already said, if opening the doors creates an airstack, your building is terribly designed.
You could also look in getting doors from sturdier glass instead of the cheapest option available.
Again, this is typical only of small business who scrimp and try to get by with the cheapest solution available, instead of spending a bit more and getting, you know, sturdy stuff that can bear the “abuse”.
sorry conz,
but what we have here is a person who has a personal bias based on their opinion and now you’ve basically started splitting hairs because for whatever reason you refuse to relent.
you’re not a small business owner. i LIVE in a small business and i’m telling the facts about why we have to have a double door: it’s not for ingress, it’s for egress only in an emergency. i’ve posted numerous other cites from other small businesses re: egress regulations in case of emergency. i’ve explained we sell doors here and have been told over and over why people need what they need (egress regulations).
there’s simply not one single answer, but there’s one CLEAR wrong answer: it’s typically a matter of a lazy, disrespectful or otherwise negligent.
the stack effect is a thing that happens and like i’ve said we’ve all experienced it.
please do the right thing and begin a career in architecture so you can remove this problem from the face of the earth since you seem to think you know what’s what on that matter. you at least owe lending your expertise to rid the world of air stack problems in all buildings.
any store can adopt whatever policy they want, so if someone has a specific policy on keeping both doors unlocked and they forget–then yep i guess sometimes it’s just absent-mindedness. but i’m showing over and over that there are small business egress regulations that require extra exit volume but only in the case of an emergency, and that seems to be the predominate answer–one you seem patently unwilling to accept. i’m asking again why you don’t just start asking managers/business owners in these stores as you encounter them if you really want to know. i’m sure you’ll get a list of varied responses, but i bet you’ll get one more than the others…
so i’m going to just leave it here: *if you think it’s laziness, put your money where your mouth is, and get off the forum and start reporting all your local small businesses to the fire marshal every time you encounter a locked inactive leaf.
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heck–if you won’t accept the answers actual business owners and managers are giving you, why not call the fire marshal and just ask HIM what the deal is…?
i kind of feel like you just want to be “right” more than you actually care about the truth–this is GQ.
not “IMHO.” you’ve brought nothing more than your opinion. i’ve provided answers from actual business owners. other than the one who said he’d forget sometimes, you’re not operating under GQ guidlines. maybe go start a thread about why you had lazy managers over in the proper forum…
So the basic situation seems to be:
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One reason small businesses have double doors is to comply with building safety codes requiring adequate egress in an emergency; and
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One (rational) reason said small business owners may keep one door locked is to stave off the dreaded “stack effect.”
FWIW, I buy that answer, and it was in fact the kind of logical answer I was hoping for. Thanks for providing it.
It doesn’t mean that I still won’t be annoyed (don’t worry, just a little!) the next time I go to pull open a door and it is locked. Now, however, I can attempt to neutralize my annoyance by recalling the logic accounting for the situation.
It does seem, however (and at the risk of expressing an opinion in the GQ forum!), that 1 and 2 above are working at cross purposes, in that, in the case of an emergency, most patrons in the business probably won’t know how to unlock the locked door. So the double door egress will in practice be reduced to a single door egress. But at least whatever emergency is at hand at that moment won’t be compounded by having to also contend with a stack effect.
Nope. It’s laziness where I work.
I’m a programmer that gets to work about 6:30am. About the same time the Building and Grounds guys do (they manage the building, do maintenance shovel snow etc.). For some reason, they have asked me to open the building up. Two sets of double doors. So I open them all up. Like they are supposed to be.
The B&G guys are often in and out of the building in the early morning, and sometimes they will open a door before I get there. A as in singular. So I’m voting on laziness here. They have their key out, both doors should be opened but they only do one. Sort of bugs me. If they would do both, I wouldn’t have to spend 5 minutes of my day checking up on them. It’s weird.
I don’t see it too often, but it is annoying when a business does this. I’ve read all the posts here, and really don’t see a good reason to do it other than forgetfulness or laziness.
Most all the double doors I encounter can always be used as an exit. There is a panic bar on it and it while it may be locked from the outside, you can exit through it. That would not violate fire code (I don’t think) Not sure why you’re so riled up.
i’m not. i’m actually the one who pointed out they are mostly there as fire exits.
whatshisface said “nuh uh–they dont’ have panic bars so they can’t be.” to which i replied he should maybe stop voicing his complaints here and get on the horn with his fire marshal if that’s what he really thinks. (the point is he’s just steadfastly refuses the answer).
the thing about laziness:
like i said, whoever can have their own policy, and sometimes people will neglect to unlock it. but in your example, you’re *assuming *they are being lazy. the thing in all these examples of “laziness” is that you’re not even using the term right–it’s not that they are lazy as in “eh i know i should but i aint reaching my arm all the way up there to flip that switch.”
i’d call it absentmindedness way before i’d call it being lazy. is that the end of their workday? do they go kick their feet up and sleep after turning that one key lock…?
are they…lazy?
who told you the company policy on opening both doors? has it been stated by someone in authority why both doors need to be open so that you know 100% for a fact they are failing in some way by opening one? or are you just used to both being open so when they don’t you get irritated…?
have you ever asked them why they don’t open both…?
how do you know whoever only opened the single door didn’t have a logical reason behind why…?
i’m just saying, hypothetically, could they have been concerned about wind, or could they have presumed a manager/whoever would open the other leaf when the busy part of the day began. when i worked in a retail establishment we only had one door open until the busy open hours began. sometimes it’d take a second to remember to go open that door. that’s not laziness–that’s just an unassigned task that was no one in particular’s job so no one person really kept 100% right on top of it.
it’s just really hard for me to call a dude lazy who more than likely worked after unlocking the door.
i have to point out something extremely telling, tho–
look at your opinion.
“bugs me.”
“annoying.”
everyone so far who is “voting on laziness” also has a strong personal opinion about how much it inconveniences them and how angry it makes them.
that’s a dubious distinction. “i’m annoyed by this”=“you’re lazy.”
I’m absolutely positive that the policy is to have all the doors open. This is a busy building with the main County Library in it. Wind is not an issue.
They are just being lazy. They know someone will come along and open the other door. It’s not a lever to flip or absent mindedness. There are two clear keyholes that one must insert an allen key into to essentially lock the panic bar down to open the door. Each door has its own key hole. You can open up either one individually.
Frankly, I shouldn’t have been given the ‘task’ at all. It’s pretty funny, when I told them that I would not be in the next day and would not be opening the doors, they asked ME to ask someone else to do it. Then they came in and asked my coworker to do it (another programmer). Funny though, she comes in a half hour later than the Building and Grounds guys. The guys that should be opening the doors in the first place. I really don’t mind, I think it’s sort of funny (and kind of strange). But if they choose to open the doors, they may as well open all of them so I don’t have to follow up.
:shrug: They are being lazy. It bugs me when people are lazy.
I’m not saying all cases are lazy, but I am saying that your assertion that it is never laziness is wrong.
i never asserted that.
i just not get so personally aggravated over doors.
not to split hairs–but if you work in a public building with a custodial crew, it’s not in any case at all the same as a small business, is it…? i can’t imagine the same regulations apply.
i don’t think your situation is applicable to why most small local chinese restaurants or 7elevens might have the inactive leaf locked.
i doubt in their case it’s because their custodians asked the IT guy to handle a portion of their tasks or whatever.
and not to further split hairs, but you don’t work in a building with inactive leaves. you work in a building with two regular ol’ key-locked doors.
it’s not at all the same thing.
Yes, but it’s also the situation where you’re likely to find this. Small stores that don’t have automatic openers, and will often cheap out on repairs and quality of equipment. All of the reasons listed in this thread contribute to making this a recognizable circumstance, but there are many reasons why it’s done. I agree that underlying these various reasons is a desire by store owners to ruin the lives of their customers by making them take a step to the right or left and push on the door a second time. I amazed so many of us survived this ordeal.
This is about as close to saying it’s never laziness as it can get. That’s what I was addressing.
Didn’t know this thread was just about small businesses. In any case, I was just pointing out that at least in my situation it is laziness. I doubt it’s the only one.
saying the answer is not “typically they are lazy” isn’t at all the same as saying “it’s *never *because they are lazy.”
take a step back and look at all the actual quotes from business owners i’ve provided explaining why, then look at how dude said “i don’t buy it–i think they’re just lazy.”
what i’m saying is the majority answer is not “lazy.” it’s a *minority *answer and not what i would cite as the problem or issue. i would cite “lazy” as the sentiment of what seems to be a group of easily irritable and very opinionated amateur enterists.
going to have to once again point out no one has presumed “lazy” as the culprit except for the people who are also consider any door related inconveniences as personal affronts to their own sensibilities.
i’m busy calculating who hates who more: how much business hate their customers or how much Conz hates small businesses. it seems nothing they do is right: they screw up their architecture, their door quality and hardware, they lack worth ethic, and they just *hate *people coming in their store. businesses are just the worst.
It doesn’t happen to me much (other than my own building :rolleyes: ) But it can be like running into a wall that you did not expect to be there. Kinda irritating…
It’s well known in the business world that customers cause most of the problems. Businesses without customers rarely get complaints.
How often does a person (or how often CAN) a person open both doors to enter/exit?
Since you now start mangling my name; implying motives to me maligning me; not responding to any of my questions or arguments; I’m out of this.
If you like to, you can declare yourself winner.
It depends on the door. With some doors, you just flip a lever, with others, you need a key. With the double doors in my house, I have to unlock the main door with one or two keys, depending on whether the deadbolt is engaged. The second door can easily be unlocked and opened with no tools if the first one is unlocked and opened.